Italian Arms Contractor and a Pennsylvania Congressman Share Close Ties

Representative Curt Weldon at his campaign headquarters in Springfield, Pa., last week. He is under scrutiny in connection with Pentagon contracts and positions for two daughters and a close friend.Credit
Robert J. Gurecki/Delaware County Caily Times, via Associated Press

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — In November at the five-star Hotel Splendido overlooking the harbor in Portofino, a playground of the Italian rich, Representative Curt Weldon was the center of attention.

The second-ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Weldon was a main speaker at a conference sponsored in part by the Italian military giant Finmeccanica. At the gathering of Italian, British and American political leaders, Mr. Weldon, of Pennsylvania, spoke on behalf of Italian arms makers who were seeking a bigger share of Pentagon contracts.

Taxpayers paid for Mr. Weldon’s stay. He received a $1,153 daily expense allowance from the federal government and flew over on a military jet.

For Mr. Weldon, the conference was a victory lap. After several years of promoting Italian military contractors, the Italians had scored some big victories at the Pentagon. But Mr. Weldon’s efforts were equally beneficial for his district, his family, his friends and his campaign coffers.

Today, the Italians may well have second thoughts about their embrace of Mr. Weldon, who has represented his suburban Philadelphia district since 1987 and is now the subject of a federal investigation into possible influence peddling and, as a result, is in a tight re-election race.

The Justice Department is looking into whether he used his position to steer almost $1 million in consulting contracts from a Russian energy company and other Eastern European interests to a lobbying firm headed by his daughter Karen, 31. Her home and her office were searched two weeks ago by federal officials.

Law enforcement officials said they were examining a wide variety of Mr. Weldon’s connections with foreign companies, but they would not discuss whether the inquiry focused directly on Finmeccanica.

Mr. Weldon’s promotion of Finmeccanica, the largest military contractor in Italy, with annual revenue of $19 billion and 55,000 employees worldwide, has certainly helped the company as it sought to become as adept as its American counterparts in playing politics to gain lucrative Pentagon contracts.

Mr. Weldon, who has offices in Upper Darby and Bridgeport, Pa., declined to comment.

A Finmeccanica subsidiary, together with Lockheed Martin, upset an American competitor to land the $1.7 billion contract to build the next Marine One presidential helicopter. Other subsidiaries are now making headway in other Pentagon contests.

Mr. Weldon’s relationship with the Italians has been mutually beneficial. His daughter Kim, 29, a former social worker, was hired by AgustaWestland, the Finmeccanica subsidiary that won the Marine One contract, shortly after her father’s speech in Portofino. Kim Weldon’s work is to set up booths at trade shows and perform public relations.

AgustaWestland said the timing was coincidental. Ms. Weldon, through a company spokesman, declined to comment.

More than 10 Americans at Finmeccanica subsidiaries in the United States, along with their spouses, were among the biggest contributors to Mr. Weldon’s campaign in 2006. Their combined donations of $20,400 edged out donations from American giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

A Finmeccanica subsidiary, Oto Melara, whose 76 Super Rapid gun Mr. Weldon has championed, last year hired his close friend Cecelia Grimes, a former real estate agent, and paid her $60,000 as a federal lobbyist. Ms. Grimes has no previous Washington lobbying experience and no Washington office.

She was put in touch with Oto Melara by Mr. Weldon’s chief of staff, Russ Caso. But, Ms. Grimes said in an interview, her employment was not because of Mr. Weldon.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said.

Ms. Grimes said she had introduced Oto Melara, which makes guns for ships and tanks, to companies in Mr. Weldon’s district.

Oto Melara defended its choice.

“We met her in a meeting in Philadelphia, and she made a good impression,” a spokesman for the company said in Il Sole 24 Ore, a Milan newspaper. “We felt she was the right person for us.”

Finmeccanica, partly owned by the Italian government, has also expanded within Mr. Weldon’s district and near it. In November, after winning the Marine One contract, AgustaWestland broke ground on a $27 million plant expansion in Northeast Philadelphia. In November 2004, Oto Melara chose Lester in the district over two others for its first major American site.

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Oto Melara selected its site as Mr. Weldon asked Navy officials to reconsider a decision to put a rival company’s guns, instead of those from Oto Melara, on its new Littoral Combat Ships.

“Congressman Weldon took immediate interest in our issue,” Howard Goldberg, chief executive of Oto Melara North America, said in an interview with The Delaware County Daily Times in suburban Philadelphia.

Finmeccanica says that it has not been contacted by the Justice Department but that it is worried. In a letter last week to Il Sole 24 Ore, the company said about Mr. Weldon. “The connection between the investigations related to the person and Finmeccanica is harmful to the image of the Finmeccanica Group.”

The letter was signed by its media director, Simone Bemporad.

Even so, the company is not ready to cut its ties. A spokesman in New York, Gino Colangelo, said last week that “we have a warm relationship” with Mr. Weldon.

“Doesn’t the congressman have to register as a foreign agent?” asked Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, which studies Pentagon contracts. “It’s always disturbing when a member of Congress goes to bat for a particular company.

“It is even more alarming when the company is foreign. When it comes to national security, you want the best products, not products from companies with a relationship to a member of Congress.”

Mr. Caso, the congressman’s chief of staff, said Mr. Weldon’s relations with the Italian companies had been misinterpreted. He said Mr. Weldon had long been an advocate for insourcing, in which foreign military contractors set up plants in the United States and provide employment. In addition, Mr. Weldon has argued that the Pentagon should scour the world for the best weapons.

The congressman’s relationship with Finmeccanica grew out of this view, Mr. Caso said. For instance, Mr. Weldon has long been associated with Marine One. But he was far more interested in opening the competition to the Italians than in picking their helicopter, Mr. Caso said, adding that the Pentagon made the final decision.

“Curt Weldon was supportive of the Marine One bid, but in no way was he a key player in winning the competition,” said E. Beau Boulter, a former Republican House member from Texas who lobbies for Finmeccanica.

Mr. Boulter has earned $440,000 in the last three years from the company, and with his wife, has donated $11,400 to Mr. Weldon and his leadership political action committee in the last two years.

The argument that Mr. Weldon was motivated to help Finmeccanica to help his district or the Pentagon does not satisfy some Pentagon watchdogs.

“If anything, this all looks like quid pro quo,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which wrote a complaint to the Justice Department two years ago about Mr. Weldon. “Weldon will help out, but it will cost. He has no affinity for the Italians, but for what they will pay. They hired his daughter and his friend, and that is the deal.”

One favor that Mr. Weldon carried out for the Italians was to be the host at a conference here on March 30, 2004, at the request of the Italian Embassy. The Italians were promoting their Marine One bid and Finmeccanica’s C-27J cargo plane as well as seeking more work from the Joint Strike Fighter program.

The Italian delegation included the chief executive of Finmeccanica, Pierfrancesco Guarguaglini, and top military officials. Mr. Weldon helped arrange for them to meet at the Rayburn House Office Building with Michael W. Wynne, who was the top weapons buyer at the Pentagon, and Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy.

Also brought in were Harry C. Stonecipher and Vance D. Coffman, then chief executives of Boeing and Lockheed, respectively, two companies in positions to form partnerships and subcontracting deals with Italian companies.

“The Italian Embassy came to us,” Mr. Caso, the Weldon aide, said. “They were upset some of their contractors were not getting enough work.”

On a more personal level, AgustaWestland, the helicopter subsidiary, said it had not sought out Kim Weldon. Mr. Colangelo, its spokesman, said she had answered an online employment advertisement.

Ms. Weldon, who had run a welcome center for immigrants in her father’s district, was selected over five or six other applicants, Mr. Colangelo said, adding, “She’s one of our best employees.” The company required her to agree to not lobby her father or other officials.

“AgustaWestland hired Kim Weldon at the end of a very competitive process,” Mr. Bemporad of Finmeccanica wrote to Il Sole 24 Ore. “Furthermore, the company adopted additional precautions — following the same guidelines used by other companies in the United States in these situations — limiting the work assigned to Ms. Weldon in an effort to prevent any apparent or real conflict of interest.”

David Johnston contributed reporting.

Correction: Nov. 3, 2006

An article on Tuesday about the ties of Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, to the Italian weapons manufacturer Finmeccanica misstated the Congressional district in which Oto Melara, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, is locating a plant. It will be in the part of Tinicum Township that is in the First Congressional District — not in Mr. Weldon’s Seventh Congressional District, which borders it.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Italian Arms Contractor and a Pennsylvania Congressman Share Close Ties. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe